Five Critical Questions to Ask Your Specialty Distributor

Submitted by BDI Pharma on Thu, 10/12/2017 - 16:12

We see it in the headlines every day—a new specialty drug is either coming out of clinical trial or has been approved.

It’s no surprise that the growth in U.S. drug spending is rapidly shifting from traditional to specialty drugs, especially as the development of new drugs becomes more targeted and expanded indications are being granted for previously approved drugs.

By 2020, projections indicate that the pharmacy industry’s revenues will exceed $483 billion, yet specialty drugs will account for almost half of these revenues.1 In addition, more than 8 out of 10 health plans identified “moving infusions to the lowest cost sites of care” as a high priority for 2017 and 2018.2

For the home infusion setting and specialty pharmacies with infusion suites, this means opportunities to better serve the patient while supporting the cost of care. It also presents challenges in access to therapy and reimbursement. While the traditional role of the specialty distributor is to provide fast access to the infusible drugs you need to support your patients, with today’s channel pressures, your specialty distributor can and will play a critical role in offering the necessary patient-centric services that are also required to support patients in getting them access to specialty drugs and helping them to afford these therapies, especially as channel and site-of-care control is migrating from manufacturers to PBMs and payers. Click on the image for five key questions to ask your specialty distributor in order to build a more strategic relationship in support of a patient-centric model of care.